A blog about living with MS, about intimacy and MS, about sex and MS.
Why Mad Sow? In homage to Denny Crane, on the TV program Boston Legal. Every time he forgot something, he'd point to his head and say "Mad Cow." I refer to my MS, primarily a cognitive thing at present, as my Mad Sow.

July 29, 2017

Sex and disability - yes yes yes!

There is nothing wrong with disabled sexuality

Disabled sexuality is very stigmatized in many cultures, and there are a lot of reasons why, some of which start with the belief that disabled people are "innocent" and need to be protected from the big bad world. You may have encountered attitudes suggesting that disabled people who have sex are freaky or weird, and that disabled people only have sex when there's a fetish involved. That's not true — lots of disabled people actually have super mundane sex lives, while others are total kinksters, some of whom are even part of the fetish community, but often their fetishes have nothing to do with disability!

Consensual, joyful sexuality isn't wrong or weird or gross or freaky, even if your body doesn't always do what you want it to do or your brain likes to fight you and even if other people want to desexualize you because of your impairment. The only people who should be ashamed of themselves are the ones who think they can dictate what your sexuality looks like because they make assumptions about you on the basis of how your body and brain function.

In fact, there's also something very right about it. Sometimes adaptations that make sex more accessible, fun, and empowering work to your advantage — like being more conscious about communication and taking advantage of props to get comfortable before you get down for sexytimes.

The site talks about many aspects of sexuality, including masturbation and toys, safety and consent, and especially, cognitive issues and sexual relationships.